Category Archives: pen and ink

My neighbor, Wendy Wackyname, is the owner of a really big dog. I asked her how she managed a dog that was bigger than a moose and weighed more than an elephant.

“You have to be able to solve problems you never thought you could have,” she said.

“Problems like what?” I stupidly asked.

“Well, a dog that big not only chases cars, he often catches the littler ones like yours. It became a real problem when he finished chewing on them and wanted to bury them in the back yard. When we lived in Oklahoma, our back yard just wasn’t big enough, and the local police kept wondering about what might be buried there. I guess they had a lot of missing persons cases.”

“Oh, that does sound bad.”

“Yeah, but moving here solved that problem. We now live next to this nice big park with lots of room for a dog to bury stuff.”

“So he isn’t cured of chasing cars?” I asked nervously.

“No. But that isn’t the worst problem. Feeding him is really expensive. We have to buy a truckload of dog food every week. That problem has gotten worse since we left Oklahoma. There used to be a cattle ranch nearby. At least until the last of their stock mysteriously disappeared.”

I decided I should probably change the subject a bit.

“How do you walk a dog that big?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t. I climb up on his neck and hang on to the collar as hard as I can, and we go for a run. We ended up in Waxahachie, Texas last week.”

“Does your mother ever let the dog in the house?”

“Oh, no. Foozy is an outside dog. If he wags his tail indoors, he breaks all the furniture in the room. Besides, the doors in this new house aren’t big enough for him to fit through.”

“Wendy, did you ever read those kids’ books about Clifford the Big Red Dog?”

“Oh, sure. But life with Foozy is nothing like that. Giant dogs are a much harder pet to take care of than people think.”

I remembered then how my little dog somehow managed to make five poops a day. Did Foozy do that too? And how did poor little Wendy go about bagging it and depositing it in the trash? I finally decided I didn’t want to know.

This drawing is not done. I have plans. But this pen and ink Paffooney is a good example of a doodle-point I probably need to make. The plan does not occur before the ink hits the drawing pad. No, this one started with a circle. And for no good reason, I had to draw the girl’s face in the circle. But what was the face doing inside a circle like that? I next drew the bird. But if she’s so surprised to see a bird inside a birdhouse… Well, you get the idea. The story comes after the scribbling.

And here comes the controversial conclusion. This is exactly how life happens. Stuff becomes… and the reason why only becomes clear later. Curse me for a doodling philosopher!

Yes, I did wash my mouth out with soap after saying that title out loud. But I can’t help thinking such strange thoughts. It is probably because Trump’s healthcare plans already have me off my meds.

I hear you screaming at your WordPress Reader saying, “How can you possibly be thinking such un-Democratic and really dumb thoughts?”

Well, if you think about it… I mean, hit your head three times near the reasoning center of the brain with a really hard rock… some of the greatest things that have happened to mankind have come from the very worst things that ever happened.

Because of World War Two and Hitler, we ended up inventing computers, and we ended up with a space program because beating Hitler gave us Werner Von Braun and some of the best rocket science minds in Germany. Because LBJ felt guilty about helping the CIA murder Kennedy he enacted the Great Society and Civil Rights reforms that make up the best of Kennedy’s legacy. (What? You say that’s crazy conspiracy theory? Well, I have been hitting my own head with a rock.) In fact, the combination of Hitler and Kennedy’s assassination put men on the moon.

Yes, humanity needs really bad times to happen to force them to make changes for the better. And Trump is really bad times. He takes food away from school children and old home-bound people so he can play more golf at Mar-a-Lago on the taxpayers’ dime. (Well, actually, it costs significantly more than a dime.) He puts coal plant waste into rivers and the drinking water of millions. He cuts regulations so corporate polluters are free to pour more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and keep us all so toasty warm with global warming that our faces will eventually melt. (And can you imagine what beauty pageants will be like when the contestants no longer have faces? Mr. Trump will no longer even be anxious to make those un-announced tours of the dressing rooms.)

The only choice we will have for survival if we are not Walmart heirs or Koch brothers is to fight back and correct the situation. It is possible that enough people will wake up to the whole Trump trauma to take back the House of Representatives in 2018. Then the investigations can really begin. Trump is waking up a sleeping giant. The public is ready to start fighting back. Bill Nye the Science Guy is ready to throw some punches for science.

Things that are necessary are never easy. It is by making too many easy choices that we got ourselves into this mess. There is a lot of stupidity and incompetence and badness out there to overcome now. And we must face it or it will kill us.

And it may be a good thing that Trump won the election. Hillary would’ve been a competent president and nothing would really have changed about the status quo. We would’ve continued to complacently allow Republicans to run the House and Senate and oppose even the most mild and wishy-washy things that President Hillary would’ve tried to get done. Now, the Trump backlash may propel us onward towards actual solutions to very real problems like climate change, excessive money in politics, ignorance among the voting public, and income inequality that is tipping us toward a new dark ages and a feudal-technological society.

So the big splash that Trump is sure to make might be a very good thing for liberals who hope to change things for the betterment of a majority of the people.

A while back I transmitted a weird alien poetry contest through this blog to the people of Earth. It was a contest for bad poetry. And obviously we only write good poetry on this planet as no entries from the native clothes-wearing primates of this planet were submitted. If you are unclear about the contest of which I speak, here is the link;

While no Earth primate entries were actually submitted (Magilla Gorilla’s entry was disqualified as he is a cartoon character and copyrighted by Hanna Barbera) we did get some entries from illegal aliens. Their contest entries are submitted here for your perusal. However, it is bad poetry. By definition, if you don’t have your Galaxian bad-poetry-reading glasses handy, you should proceed with extreme caution.

This first entry is from a random Space Goon. It is exceptionally bad poetry, and apparently the Goon who wrote it has no individual name. He appears to be one of many dumped on this planet by interstellar authorities in order to prevent them from doing any real damage to planets that matter.

Goon Verse

Goon-goon-goon

Goon is good

Goon will come

And live in your house

Goon will come

And eat your mouse

Goon-goon-goon

Why you no like Goon?

The second entry I intend to inflict on you is a very weird entry I got in container that was apparently filled with radio-active foof gas. While foof gas is apparently a deadly poison in most of the Milky Way, it is non-toxic to humans from Earth. The perpetrator of this poem would only identify himself (or herself… or itself) as Bing-bing the Laser Guy.

I Will Kill You

Bing-bing is hiding on Earth!

How can you not understand this?

If you publish my writings,

And allow the authorities to discover my presence,

I will come to your house and evaporate your head!

The rhythm of that poem is very poor, and the rhyme scheme is non-existent. But it is supposed to be bad poetry, after all. So I suppose it has just as much chance of winning as the rest of them.

The Mookian Space Elf submitted not only a bad poem, but 8 X 10 glossies of himself. He watches endless hours of PBS kid shows, educational cartoons, and inexplicable Boo Bahs and Teletubbies. I think he’s convinced himself that this contest is somehow an audition for a kids’ show. He claims to be able to sing and dance, as well as be funny, educational, and relentlessly cute.

Hire Me!!!

Ain’t I cute?

Ain’t I sweet?

I’ll give you diabetes so bad,

It will surely eat your feet!

Love me!

Dove me!

And give me so much money

That I’ll laugh so hard I pee!

Yes, if that is poetry, it is really bad poetry.

The final entry is from Ralph the Inexplicable. This amazing being has been on Earth since before there were dinosaurs, so it is possible he is more of an Earthling than we are. He is reputed to be incredibly wise, but his poetry was also hard to translate into English since it was all in ones and zeros. And I don’t speak binary code. So my translation may be less of a bad poem by Ralph and more of a bad poem made up by me.

Song of Slortcherill

Mee tok funni

Mee tok sloe

Leesen two mee

Ann emjoiy da show

Wheen Slortcherill sings

Da winners all brayk

Da kidoinks all screem

Anna moofins all bayk

I was warned that if I translated that poem with proper English spelling, it would fill your head with so much “wisdom”, your brain would melt. So I present it here according to Ralph’s specifications. I did read two of the lines with proper English spellings and felt my head grow distinctly hotter. So I wouldn’t risk thinking too hard about what the proper spellings are if I were you.

None of these entries will probably win the contest. They are all certainly bad poetry. But I am fairly certain that given the competition from this part of the Milky Way Galaxy worse does, in fact, exist out there… somewhere. And may you never be unfortunate enough to find it.

For the past two weeks I have been battling the Wicked Witch of the Diabetes. Her armies of flying blood-sugar monkeys have been snatching away my healthy hours and leaving me with pain, headaches, and depressing blues of worry. I have been combating the disease up to now with diet and exercise only. But even the miracle of a handful of peanuts filled with good diabetes-bashing niacin is apparently not magic enough to make me feel better. I probably have to go back to the doctor and get put on insulin injections. And that is probably more expense than I can afford. Health insurance loves to collect ever-higher premiums from me, but they really hate to pay for anything.

In answer to my problem I have started a new art project. Dorothy with a bit of attitude has flown in on the latest twister to start bashing heads and murdering witches. It is probably the worst kind of magical thinking to believe drawing pictures can make health problems go away. However, you don’t just let flying monkeys run wild. The pen and ink will get a colored-pencil treatment and I will show it to you here on this blog as we proceed down that yellow brick road of life. And I will get better somehow and someway, even if I have to pull that little con man out from behind the curtain and call him names until he cries. He’s going to find something in that bag of tricks to help me.

I am not out of things to write about. In fact, I have far more ideas than I have time to manage. So I will waste some time I don’t have in plotting out the way forward through the creative jungle.

I am at the climax of the novel Stardusters and Space Lizards. I have seen by posting it chapter by chapter here that I must not only finish it, as a good, timely science fiction novel, but that I must experiment with publishing the entire thing on my blog. I may later self-publish the thing, but you will get the chance to see the entire rough draft here… on Tuesdays.

I also have several cartoon series that I want to expand upon and publish here. That includes my Action Figure Follies, my Tales From Fantastica, and Hidden Kingdom. These are also posted in my vault, Mickey’s House of Fiction.

I want to post further on what I am learning about the perilous publishing journey that I hope to complete before I die, sharing with you some of the many secrets, tricks, hopes, and foolishnesses I have used to shoot myself in both feet and sink myself into the quicksand of author anonymity.

I have a post in mind about the YouTube videos of the NerdWriter, an auteur of infinite and in-depth ideas. I want to share some of his amazing work and insights with you.

And the conspiracy theorist inside me is bursting to get out with everything I have learned about William Shakespeare. who has never really been who we think he is, and the very solid evidence of why I believe in this loony conspiracy theory when I don’t believe that the moon landing was faked by Franco Zeffirelli.

At some point, too, I need to let you in on the creative processes that occur as I write the novel Recipes For Gingerbread Children. It seems to be another inevitable novel that has to come out of me before my stupid old story-teller head explodes with it.

And maybe I need to explain who Dr. Seabreez is, and why there is more than just one me traveling through time and space and laughter.

I know that is a lot to threaten you with all at once, and you may find a post like this extremely boring. In fact, you may have given up reading already. But I do intend to make these writing abominations actually occur, so you may as well grit your teeth and get ready as the creative wheels turn, or have a flat, or grow spikes… something like that.

If you cruise the bargain sections in an old used book store like Half-Price Books, eventually you are going to find something priceless. This book I am showing you is that very thing for me.

It was copyrighted in 1978. The inscription inside the front cover says this was a Father’s Day gift on June 19th, 1988. Someone named Gary gifted it to someone named Claude in Burleson, Texas. It was probably a cherished book until someone passed away and the book changed hands in an estate sale.

Howard Pyle

The book chronicles the height of the publishing era when being able to print books and reproduce artworks began entertaining the masses. Always before painters and great artists worked for a patron for the purpose of decorating their home in a way that displayed their great wealth. But from the 1880’s to the rise of cinema, magazines and books kept the masses entertained, helped more people to become literate than ever before, and created the stories that made our shared culture and life experiences grow stronger and ever more inventive. The book focuses on the best of the best among a new breed of artist… the illustrators.

Wyeth was most famous as a book illustrator for Treasure Island, Kidnapped, other books by Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain, and a famous volume of tales about Robin Hood.

Frederick Remington

Remington is a name you probably know as a maker of Western art. He was a famous painter of cowboys and Indians and the American frontier.

Maxfield Parrish

Maxfield Parrish is my all-time favorite painter. His work is something I gushed about in previous posts because I own other books about his fanciful works painted in Maxfield Parrish blue.

Also Maxfield Parrish

J.C. Leyendecker

You will probably recognize Leyendecker’s work in magazine and advertising illustration as the standard of the Roaring 20’s. His paintings set a style that swept American culture for more than a decade, and still affects how we dress to this very day.

More Leyendecker

Even more from Leyendecker

Norman Rockwell

Norman Rockwell and his work for The Saturday Evening Post is still familiar to practically everyone who reads and looks at the illustrations. As you can see he was a master of folksy realism and could do a portrait better than practically anyone.

Also Rockwell

I have also written about Norman Rockwell before too. I have half a dozen books that include his works. My wife is from the Philippines and she knew about him before I ever said a word to her about him.

Charles Dana Gibson

As you can plainly see, Gibson was a master of pen and ink. His work for Collier’s and other magazines thrills in simple black and white. More cartoonists than just little ol’ me obsess about how he did what he did.

Also Gibson

James Montgomery Flagg… with a name like that, who else could it be?

John Held Jr.

The work of Held is stylistically different than all the rest in easily noticeable ways. He’s the guy that made all the big-headed Pinocchio-looking people in the 1920’s. You may have seen his work before, though you probably never knew his name.

This bit of someone else’s treasure hoard will now become a part of my own dragon’s treasure, staying by my bedside for quite a while, while I continue to suck the marrow from each of its bones. I love this book. It is mine, and you can’t have it… unless you find your own copy in a used bookstore somewhere.